My Brother's Secret

by Dan Smith

  ‘By who?’ Mama interrupted, and Oma and Opa looked at me.

  ‘As I say,’ Wolff gave Mama hardly more than a glance, ‘your name was mentioned and there was a disturbance tonight so …’ he opened his arms, palms up. ‘Well. I’m just doing my job. I’m sure you understand how it is.’

  Stefan shrugged as if he couldn’t care less.

  ‘But I can see that you are here, at home, where you are supposed to be, so you clearly had nothing to do with it.’ Wolff glanced down at his hat and brushed a non-existent speck of dust from the brim. ‘Well,’ he said, looking at Mama, then at Opa. ‘I’m sorry to have disturbed you.’

  ‘No, that’s … that’s quite all right.’

  ‘Good night, Herr Brandt. Frau Friedmann.’ Wolff did another odd little bow and I felt a surge of relief. Somehow, Stefan had made it. He had managed to outrun the boys and now he had outsmarted Kriminalinspektor Wolff. I must have fallen into a deeper sleep than I realised and Stefan had come home and slipped into bed without me noticing. This was a small victory for the Edelweiss Pirates.

  Wolff turned to the door and put his hand on the latch.

  He paused.

  Turned back.

  Looked directly at Stefan.

  ‘You’re not curious?’ he asked.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘You didn’t ask what kind of a disturbance there was tonight.’

  Stefan ran a hand through his hair again. ‘It’s none of my business.’

  Wolff waited.

  ‘All right, then; what kind of disturbance was it?’ Stefan asked.

  Wolff took his hand from the latch. ‘Well, I’m glad you asked me that.’ He put his hat on the table and reached one hand into his pocket. ‘There’s something I need you to look at.’ He removed a piece of paper. ‘You see, someone has been delivering leaflets.’

  Suddenly, I had an image of Jana and Stefan going from door to door, putting something into the letterboxes.

  ‘You might have seen them before.’ Wolff unfolded the paper and came closer, holding it out.

  It was a picture of the Führer standing over the bodies of dead German soldiers. One of the leaflets dropped from the enemy planes a few nights ago.

  I remembered how afraid Stefan had been when I picked up the leaflet in the street the night they were dropped, and I remembered what had happened to Herr Finkel. The leaflets were trouble. Big trouble.

  ‘We can’t have this kind of thing on our streets,’ Wolff said. ‘I’m sure you agree.’

  Stefan made a show of peering over to look at the leaflet, but Wolff did not let go of it.

  ‘Terrible,’ Stefan said with an edge of sarcasm.

  Wolff folded the leaflet and put it back into his pocket. ‘These Edelweiss Pirates – people you have been known to associate with – this is the kind of thing they would do. Delivering malicious propaganda.’

  ‘I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about,’ Stefan said. ‘I’ve never heard of—’

  ‘Nevertheless, you have been seen with people suspected of being members.’ He stared at Stefan.

  ‘None of my friends have said anything about being … what did you say they were called?’

  Wolff gave Stefan a knowing smile. ‘Well, sometimes people aren’t what they say they are, isn’t that right?’

  Stefan shrugged.

  ‘Apparently some of these delinquents collected a quantity of enemy leaflets and have been distributing them to people’s houses. In the dead of night. One might even suggest they could be accused of spying.’ Wolff paused. ‘So, perhaps the thing for me to do is to put your grandparents’ mind at rest. Your poor mother too.’

  ‘Sure,’ Stefan said. ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Then why don’t you invite me come up and look at your belongings? To …’ He made a show of thinking for a moment. ‘To reassure myself that you don’t have any of these leaflets just waiting for distribution.’

  ‘Gerhard Wolff.’ Mama’s exclamation made him switch his attention to her. ‘How dare you accuse my son of—’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Stefan stopped her. ‘I haven’t got anything to hide.’

  We were going to prove him wrong. We would let him look and he’d find nothing and he’d leave empty-handed.

  Wolff stared at Mama for a moment, then turned to look at Stefan once more. ‘Thank you.’ He smiled and did that strange little bow again, then came to the bottom of the stairs and waited for Mama and me to step aside.

  ‘Really,’ Stefan said. ‘It’s all right, Mama.’

  When Mama moved out of his way, Wolff climbed the stairs with slow and deliberate steps. At the top he paused.

  ‘On the right,’ Stefan said.

  Wolff disappeared into our bedroom.

  Oma and Opa came to join us at the bottom of the stairs and we waited in silence, exchanging glances as we heard Wolff’s movements. The floor creaked. Belongings were moved. We held our breath.

  Stefan looked over at me and winked. It was going to be fine. We had nothing to hide.

  Then Wolff emerged from the bedroom and came to the top of the stairs.

  He looked down at Stefan then at me.

  ‘Perhaps the boys would like to join me,’ he said. ‘I have something I want to show them.’

  ‘What is it?’ Oma asked. ‘What?’

  Wolff beckoned to us. ‘Just … come and see.’

  Stefan patted my shoulder and nodded once for reassurance, then we went up to the bedroom.

  When I saw my copy of Mein Kampf, face up on the chest of drawers, my heart stopped and my legs lost all their strength. Beside it, one of the leaflets from the enemy plane lay like the most damning piece of evidence in the crime of the century.

  ‘Perhaps you could explain this.’ Wolff wasn’t speaking to Stefan now, he was speaking to me.

  ‘I …’

  ‘This is your book isn’t it? It has your name in it.’

  ‘Y … yes.’

  Wolff nodded and took his own leaflet from his pocket. He unfolded it and put it beside the one I had hidden in the book. ‘A perfect match.’ He stood back as if to admire the pictures of Hitler standing over the bodies of the German soldiers.

  He looked at Stefan. ‘I came suspecting the older but find, in fact, that it is the younger brother who—’

  ‘It’s mine.’ Stefan stepped forward. ‘The leaflet’s mine. I delivered them tonight.’

  ‘How noble of you to accept the guilt for your brother’s crimes,’ Wolff said. ‘But I am not so easily fooled.’

  ‘No …’ I tried to speak up but my voice was faint and thin. ‘It is mine. I—’

  ‘I delivered the leaflets,’ Stefan said. ‘I can tell you which streets. Which houses.’

  Wolff raised his eyebrows. ‘All right. And I’ll need to know the names of your accomplices. You can tell me once we get to Headquarters.’

  Headquarters. After what Stefan had told me, the very mention of it made my insides churn.

  ‘No.’ Mama moved to stand between Stefan and Wolff. ‘You’re not taking my son anywhere.’

  ‘There’s really nothing you can do to stop me, Frau Friedmann.’

  ‘Don’t “Frau Friedmann” me. You know perfectly well what my name is,’ she said. ‘And that leaflet does not belong to my son. You put it there, Gerhard Wolff. You planted it so you’d have an excuse to arrest him.’

  ‘It’s Kriminalinspektor Wolff,’ he said with menace. ‘And if you don’t step aside, I will arrest you too.’ He moved closer to Mama and lowered his voice. ‘I will have you sent to a place from which you will never return.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘In fact, I could arrange for your youngest son to lose every member of his family if I so wished.’

  Mama’s eyes widened in horror. There was nothing she could do. Nothing at all. We were powerless.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Stefan said, coming forward. ‘I’ll be all right, Mama.’ He sounded so brave, but I could see the way he trembled.


  ‘Frau Friedmann?’ Wolff put a hand out to one side to indicate that she should move out of his way. ‘If you please.’

  Mama kept her head high. She looked right into Wolff’s eyes. ‘What happened to the boy I remember from school? What happened to Gerhard Wolff?’

  ‘I became Kriminalinspektor Wolff, and I have a job to do.’

  Mama shook her head at him. ‘How can you sleep at night?’

  ‘I sleep very well,’ he said as he brought Stefan in front of him. ‘And I will sleep even better once I know that all of the Führer’s enemies have been silenced.’

  When we stepped back to let them pass, Wolff glanced down at me with a contented and smug look that made me feel so mad.

  ‘Where are you taking him?’ Mama asked with desperation as she followed Wolff and Stefan down the stairs towards the front door. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘He’s just a boy,’ Opa pleaded. ‘Only sixteen. It was just some silly prank.’

  ‘Open the door,’ Wolff ordered Stefan, and when he did, we saw two SS guards smoking cigarettes by the small truck parked behind Wolff’s car. It was the same kind of truck they had used to take Herr Finkel away.

  As soon as the soldiers saw Wolff, they stood to attention, throwing their cigarettes onto the road where they bounced and sprayed a glitter of glowing ash. Coming forward they glanced at the rest of us standing in the hallway, then took hold of Stefan, walked him to the truck and slammed the door shut behind him.

  ‘You men should be ashamed of yourselves,’ Mama shouted at them. ‘Ashamed.’

  Oma took her arm to quieten her down, stop her from saying something we would all regret.

  ‘Please,’ Opa begged Wolff. ‘He’s just a boy. Don’t you remember what it was like to be a boy? To do something stupid? To make a mistake?’

  Wolff turned so he was facing into the house, and he looked at each of us in turn. He kept his chin up and his head still so that only his eyes moved. Then he raised his arm and said, ‘Heil Hitler’.

  Before he could lower his arm, though, Mama stepped forward. She held herself straight and strong and stared Wolff in the eye, curling her lip with distaste. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, Gerhard Wolff.’

  Wolff sneered. ‘It’s Kriminalin—’

  ‘Shame on you.’ Mama’s hand came up like a flash and slapped him across the left cheek with a loud smack.

  Before Mama could hit him a second time, though, Wolff struck her so hard in the face that he knocked her backwards. She stumbled away, tripped on the mat and collapsed to the floor with a crash.

  I immediately rushed to her, crouching and holding on to her.

  Opa’s hands tightened into fists and he started to step towards Wolff, but Oma reached out to hold his arm. Opa stopped, looked at Oma, then took a deep breath and came to Mama’s side.

  Mama didn’t try to get up. She turned so her head was in my lap and she sobbed and sobbed, and I held her and stroked her hair. When I looked up at Wolff, feeling hatred burning in my blood, I saw that he had taken out his pistol and was pointing it down at Mama as if he intended to shoot her right there. His face was no longer calm, but was a picture of fury. His eyes were narrowed, his jaw clamped tight, his breathing heavy.

  I held Mama’s head as I stared at the dark barrel of the gun, then looked Wolff in the eye, wondering what he was going to do.

  He continued to point the weapon at her for a while longer then, slowly, he lowered it so his arm was hanging at his side. He stood in the doorway like that for a moment, then holstered the pistol and tried to compose himself.

  ‘One Friedmann will be enough for tonight,’ he said, straightening his hat. ‘Perhaps I will come for you another time. Heil Hitler.’ Then he turned on his heels and went to his car.

  When Wolff drove away, the truck followed close behind.

  BLOOD IS SPILLED

  Opa left the door open and stood there, staring into the night as if Wolff’s car might come back.

  Mama had quietened down and I kept stroking her hair, wanting to make her feel better, but then my hand felt wet and when I looked down, I realised why she hadn’t tried to get up. There was blood. A lot of blood.

  No one had noticed it in all the commotion, but we saw it now, pooling on the floor, oozing between the floorboards. It was sticky on my fingers and soaking into my pyjamas where she’d been resting her head.

  ‘Hannah!’ Oma said. ‘You’re bleeding. Quickly Walther, help me get her up.’ She took Mama’s hand and together they pulled her to her feet.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Mama was saying, ‘fine,’ but she had trouble standing because her legs didn’t do what they were supposed to. They kept softening and she sagged as if she were going to drop to the floor again.

  The blood was running down her face, along her neck and soaking into her nightclothes. It was everywhere, and I began to panic.

  ‘Help her,’ I said. ‘Please. Help Mama.’

  They sat Mama at the table, then Opa went to the cupboard and took out the box of medical things.

  Mama still looked woozy as Oma tried to clean away the blood, but she was more alert than before, and when Opa brought her some water, she took the glass and drank every last drop. Her hands were shaking, but she didn’t drop it, and when she was finished she asked for more.

  ‘I can’t stop this bleeding.’ Every time Oma wiped away the blood, more oozed from the gash on the side of Mama’s head. ‘You must have knocked it on the corner of the table when you fell. It’s just too deep. You’ll have to go to the hospital.’

  ‘Come on then.’ Opa started to stand. ‘Help me get her to the car.’

  ‘No,’ Mama said, ‘you stitch it.’ Then she looked at Opa. ‘Go and find out what’s happening to my Stefan. That’s much more important.’

  ‘I don’t have what I need for this,’ Oma told her. ‘You need a hospital.’

  ‘Someone should be here.’ Mama argued. ‘What if Stefan comes home and there’s no one here?’

  ‘You’re right,’ Opa agreed. ‘Your mother and Karl should stay here. We can manage on our own.’

  So Oma bandaged Mama’s head to keep the bleeding under control and Opa drove her away into the night, leaving Oma and me alone.

  When they were gone, the house was quiet. Oma and I sat opposite each other at the kitchen table and we didn’t speak for a long time.

  Mostly, I let my blood boil and thought about what Wolff had done.

  I couldn’t believe he had taken Stefan away, and I couldn’t believe he had hit Mama. I kept seeing it over and over again and I remembered all the times he had smiled that awful smile at me, and how he had asked me to tell him if I ever heard anything about Edelweiss Pirates. Criminals, he had called them, but I bet they never hit women. I bet they never took boys away in the night, like the Nazis did. I bet they never pointed their pistols at defenceless families.

  ‘He’s an animal.’ Oma spoke with tight lips. ‘I could—’

  ‘Kill him,’ I finished for her.

  She looked up at me.

  ‘I know I could,’ I said. ‘I hate him.’

  ‘Hush now,’ Oma warned. ‘Keep those things to yourself.’

  ‘Who’s going to hear? I could kill him.’ I raised my voice and stood up, wanting to say it over and over. I imagined ripping that gun out of his hand and shooting him, firing bullet after bullet after bullet. ‘I want to kill him.’

  ‘Don’t ever let anyone hear you say that.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘Well you should care. You’ve got your mama to think about. And us. Look what’s happened already, because your brother’s been running about with those Edelweiss Pirates.’

  ‘You knew about them,’ I said. ‘You knew what the flower meant. You knew who they were.’

  ‘We told him not to get involved with them.’

  ‘But you hate the Führer just like they do. I know it.’ I banged my hand on the table. ‘You didn’t tell me the truth. You didn�
��t trust me.’

  ‘Karl—’

  ‘You didn’t trust me.’ I almost shouted the words. ‘You thought I would tell.’

  ‘And did you?’ Oma fixed me with a stare. ‘Is that how Wolff knew about Stefan?’

  I felt a cold shudder run through me. ‘What?’

  ‘Wolff said someone told him. Was it you?’ Her words were slow and deliberate and full of suspicion. ‘Did you tell Wolff about Stefan?’

  ‘No. Of course not. He’s my brother. Why would—’

  ‘You reported him once before.’

  My mouth fell open and I stared, not knowing what to say. The awful secret I had been holding down began to rise to the surface, bringing with it the most dreadful feelings of shame and guilt.

  ‘When he was arrested last year,’ Oma said. ‘You reported him. It was you.’

  ‘What? No I—’

  ‘We all know it was you.’

  Oma’s words were like bullets; each one punching through my heart. Each one letting me know what a terrible, terrible person I had been.

  All I could do was stand there, mouth opening and closing, because she was right and I didn’t know what to say.

  I had betrayed Stefan. My own brother. He had spent a week in boot camp and come home with his head shaved because I had reported him.

  Me.

  ‘Why did you do it, Karl? What could you have been thinking?’

  I sat down as the overwhelming mixture of feelings drowned my anger. My guilt was coupled with regret, the fear of having been found out, the realisation of why no one trusted me, and the relief of finally being able to let go of my secret.

  ‘Stefan knew it was you.’ Oma looked at me. ‘The interrogators taunted him with it. They laughed at him for being reported by his own brother. He said it wasn’t your fault, though. He forgave you. He knew the Nazis were in your head.’

  ‘Not any more.’ I put my hands over my face and bit my lip to stop the tears. ‘Not any more. I wouldn’t do it again.’

  ‘You didn’t say anything to Wolff?’

  ‘No. I promise.’ My eyes began to well over. ‘I’ve changed. Everything’s different now. Everything.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes,’ I sobbed. ‘I wouldn’t do anything to hurt Stefan. I wouldn’t. I promise.’